CHRIS POWELL: Military needs support far more than our piety

Connecticut schools increasingly are using Veterans Day for the best educational purpose -- inviting military veterans and military people still on active duty to speak about their experience and be honored. South Windsor's Timothy Edwards Middle School took the exercise a step further this week. During the school's annual trip to Washington four eighth-graders who won an essay contest laid a memorial wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery.

There are actually many unknown soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen at Arlington -- many gravestones whose only inscriptions are numbers, marking the remains of those whose bodies were blasted apart or burned beyond recognition in battle. The Tomb of the Unknowns, resting place of soldiers from both world wars, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, represents all of them.

These exercises in school should lead students to greater study of history and civics and then to lifelong participation in public life in appreciation for the sacrifices made on their behalf. But these exercises also should catch the attention of adults. For despite the increasingly frequent tributes to people in military service, it has been a long time since they were treated with the respect that counts most -- the nation's absolute commitment to their victory in battle.

Indeed, some recent tributes seem superficial, guilt-ridden, a lot of empty piety -- because the country demands so much from its military people in pursuit of ill-conceived foreign adventures the country doesn't support, most lately the wars to civilize the barbarians in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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The United States has declared victory in Iraq and withdrawn most of its soldiers there, yet that country is ever-more anarchic, with bombings and sectarian murders almost every day.

In Afghanistan the United States is suffering more casualties from treachery by its supposed Afghan allies than from the supposed enemy itself, the Taliban. Americans adorn themselves with yellow ribbons or red poppies of remembrance of their soldiers, but that remembrance does not extend to meaningful support of the wars those soldiers fight. No, the Afghan war is being fought like the wars in Iraq, Vietnam, and Korea before it -- on the cheap.

It's not just that the number of troops sent to pacify Afghanistan is a fraction of what would be necessary; it's also that there aren't enough troops to sustain even the half-hearted effort being made. As a result some soldiers are serving third or fourth tours in Afghanistan. Beyond our war dead, thousands of soldiers have come home with devastating physical or mental injuries and there has been an explosion of suicides among them -- all on account of a war most people back home realize is futile and unnecessary.

After all, no matter how many terrorists there are in Afghanistan, the most remote part of the world, they pose no threat to any nation with ordinary border controls.

The last war the United States fought to win and really considered vital to national security was the Second World War. Back then public policy established that we were all in it together. The country had a military draft. Most able-bodied men were in the service. Most families had a loved one far away for whom they feared and prayed constantly. The country had rationing and high tax rates. The war was the main focus of the country's life. To achieve victory even atomic weapons were used.

But the Veterans Day exercises this week couldn't hide it: Today the people and their government have a contemptible bargain. The people won't get in the way of the government's stupid foreign adventures as long as nothing is required of them -- no draft, no war taxes, not the slightest inconvenience. Those who enlist in the military out of idealism, patriotism, and courage only to be sent into wars nobody cares about are betrayed from the start despite all the pious tributes.

Chris Powell is managing editor of the Journal Inquirer in Manchester, Conn.